blocks

Lately, memories of building things in kindergarten and elementary school have been flooding back to me. Some of my earliest memories involve playing with wood blocks (most likely made and distributed by milton bradley, tootsietoy or playskool). At home I used a set of woodblocks that I assume my father had made for me. These blocks were various sizes made from smooth hard heavy wood. I used those blocks with most toys that I played with. The shag carpet in my room needed smooth roads for my hot wheels and matchbox cars to run on so that the carpet wouldn't get caught in the wheels of my cars. The blocks provided a smooth road surface and allowed me to build a network of roads for play to occur. Later I used these same blocks with star wars and gi joe figures to build structures. I assume that these blocks were cut off pieces from my Dad's shop. I'm trying to figure out if my little brother remembers where they ended up. Anyway, this thought was triggered my Wisdom of the Hands author Doug Stowe.

Physicists have noted and proven that if you take two particles, introduce them to each other and then thrust them apart to the furthest reaches of the universe, what is done to one is noted within the behavior of the other. The phenomenon is called quantum entanglement and may someday help us to understand higher levels of human inter-connectedness and inner-connectedness.

Friedrich Froebel had been born the son of a Lutheran minister and his mother had died at a very early age. He was a bright child and cherished by his father's second wife until her own children came along. At that point he was left to fend for himself to obtain the emotional support every child needs. At an early age he was sent to live with an uncle and became apprenticed to a forester, and it was there in the Thuringian forest that Froebel discovered a love of botany and the seeds were planted for what would become Kindergarten, a garden of children. In witnessing the wonders of nature he likely gained a first glimpse of the inter-connectedness of all things.

In college Froebel had planned to become an architect but had an opportunity to work as an assistant to Christian Samuel Weiss, a leading authority on minerals and crystallography. Helping to organize the collection of minerals for Dr. Weiss, Froebel was to witness how things of great beauty grow from patterns inherent within. Should children, given the right circumstances, not grow in the same manner? You see the impact of his work with Dr. Weiss in Froebel's development of his gifts, one through 6 which were designed to lead the child into an exploration of the structure of the universe and through association with other Kindergarten activities, construct their own place within it.

Many of us have seen, even before the internet and before facebook and tik tok, evidence of our inter-connectedness and inner-connectedness. Living in a small town and knowing a few folks, I'll think of someone as I drive through town and then see them coming toward me in the next car. This is not always the case but happens often enough to make me wonder. Under such circumstances, we don't need facebook to remind us that we are a part of one another and that what we do reflects who we are and may be guided by unseen patterns within.

And so, what are we to make of all this? Froebel had suggested three uses for the Froebel gifts. One was to use blocks to create what he called forms of knowledge. Forms of knowledge were used to represent numbers and mathematical constructs important to the growth of the child. Another use was to create forms of beauty. These were to develop the child's design sense through representations of symmetry and rhythm. The third use was to create what Froebel referred to as forms of life, representing the objects to be found in everyday life, thus connecting with the child's natural inclination to serve others by making useful things. So you take these three things, development of intellect, artistic sense, and inclination to serve and you have the formula for growth.

It's ironic that Froebel did not become an architect of buildings, but instead an architect for a system of education that allowed the child to grow from within, as a crystal or flower might grow. In his autobiography Frank Lloyd Wright said about his play with Froebel blocks and their impact, "I can still feel those maple blocks in my hands to this day."

I've become fascinated of late, by the simple realization that when a light shines upon an object, its colors are reflected outward without limit into the whole of the universe. So where do we set the boundaries of self?

The illustration from wikipedia shows an experiment demonstrating quantum entanglement.

If you are reading this, we are entangled.

Make, fix and create...

When Friedrich Froebel established the first system for educating young children, he created a series of playthings to provide children with focussed educational experiences. Up until that time, toys were intended for amusement and education was provided through books and instruction. Froebel's Kindergarten used play as its engine and his Spielgaben ("play gifts") were the fuel. During his lifetime he codified the series of Froebel® Gifts up through Gift 6. After his death in 1852, his followers extended the

series of educational toys by numbering other materials used in his school.

Froebel Gifts 2 through 6 (aka "the Building Gifts") are wood blocks in various shapes and quantities. Known most commonly as Froebel Blocks, these toys were made famous in the USA by the Milton Bradley Company. Milton Bradley himself was a strong advocate of the Froebel method. Josef Albers, Charles Eames, Buckminster Fuller, Johannes Itten, Paul Klee, and Frank Lloyd Wright are famous examples of children educated with the Froebel materials. The stone version of Froebel® Blocks made in Germany by the Anker Steinbaukasten GmbH factory (founded by Adolf Richter, a wealthy businessman in Froebel's village of Rudolstadt) were a favorite toy of Albert Einstein.

-https://froebelblocks.com/

Kindergarten as a concept was developed in Germany by Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852), a student of Swiss educator Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. Froebel’s German kindergartens encouraged children to enjoy natural studies, music, stories, play with manipulative learning toys. He recommended teachers use geometric shapes and crafts for teaching and advocated the use of ‘gifts’ or playthings in the form of geometric shapes to promote learning and occupations or activities. Froebel also incorporated learning through expression, systematized play and social imitation. The first kindergarten opened in Germany in 1837; the first in the US was opened by Margarethe Schurz to a German speaking community in Wisconsin in 1856. In 1860, Elizabeth Peabody opened the first English speaking kindergarten in Boston. Over time, kindergarten was introduced into public schools with the changed purpose of providing an early academic foundation for 5 and 6-year old children preparing for 1st grade.

This set of blocks is the sixth “gift” in the series manufactured by the Milton Bradley Company. The blocks are in a square cherry wood box with a removable sliding top and a faded green label on one side. The box contains thirty-six wood blocks of three standard sizes: sixteen long, wide rectangular blocks; six long, thin rectangular blocks; and fourteen short, wide rectangular blocks.

Milton Bradley Company was established by Milton Bradley (1836-1911) in 1860. A mechanical draughtsman and patent agent interested in lithography, board games and puzzles, Milton Bradley became interested in the kindergarten movement after he attended a lecture by Elizabeth Peabody in 1869. Elizabeth and her sister Mary, who was by then the widow of educator Horace Mann, were devoted to promoting Froebel’s philosophy of creative play for pre-school children and helped spread of the Kindergarten Movement to America’s cities. These “gift boxes” are examples of school equipment made by Milton Bradley sometime between 1880 to 1900 for use in kindergartens. Milton Bradley produced educational materials free of charge for the kindergartens in his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts and was committed to developing kindergarten educational materials such as these gifts, colored papers and paints.

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- https://www.si.edu/object/kindergarten-block-set-gift-no-6-milton-bradley%3Anmah_1825929